1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a zoom camera, and more particularly to a mode set up device for a campact zoom camera which is compact and has improved handling for setting a mode. The present invention also relates to a control method for the zoom camera with a manual focus mode.
2. Background Arts
Recent compact cameras often have an electric zoom lens and a variety of operation modes including different focusing modes and different flash modes. The focusing modes include an autofocus mode and a manual focus mode. The flash modes include a pre-emission mode for avoiding red-eye phenomenon and an on-flashing mode for flashing illumination light at each exposure. Most of these compact cameras are provided with operation members such as small buttons for mode setting.
In the manual focus mode, a subject distance is predetermined by the photographer, so the photographer can release the shutter the moment the aimed subject moves in that subject distance range.
As the variety of operation modes is getting wider, the number of operation members is getting larger. On the other hand, since zooming is the most frequent operation, zooming operation members should not be too small for ease of handling. To maintain a sufficiently large area or space for the zooming operation members, other mode set-up operation members have been made so small that the efficiency and handling facility in mode setting is unsatisfactory in the conventional compact zoom camera.
Moreover, as the compact zoom camera has a small size, inexpensive zoom lens system, a valid focusing range varies depending upon the focal length. Specifically, the nearest in-focus range or the shortest subject distance the lens system can be focused on changes with the focal length during zooming. Therefore, a subject distance manually selected at a particular focal length can be less than the nearest in-focus range valid for a different focal length. If the photographer releases the shutter in that condition, an exposure is made through the zoom lens system focused on the nearest in-focus range rather than the manually selected subject distance, so that a aimed main subject is taken out-of-focus.